Grow With Pastor Joe

Perspective matters. How you view yourself and the world around you matters. However, how your view of God matters more. When it comes to life, we know how important perspective is. Have you ever realized that you often look at things the wrong way? I do it all the time it seems. God graciously opens my eyes to the reality of things after I’ve struggled long enough with having the right attitude or perspective about a problem or situation. In life there are several perspectives that you can take. One, you can be a pessimist. You doubt. You live for discouragement. You are the rain cloud to everyone’s positive outlook. You see the bad or the possible negative outcomes. This leads to a life of discouragement for yourself and often in those around you. Second, you can be an optimist. You believe. You live for the grand possibilities and seeing the positive. You view the glass half-full and perhaps can even see the sun through the clouds. However, things don’t always go your way which then can lead to disappointment. Then, you can be a realist. Everyone thinks they are realists because we always want to believe that our perspective is reality. The realist can cut through the negative and the positive to see what the reality of things is. Normally, the realist isn’t overly down or overly excited. Let’s shift over to the spiritual world now. Perspective matters in our spiritual life more than we realize or admit. Once again, there are spiritual pessimists. They live in doubt and discouragement. Often the spiritual pessimist is unsettled and unsure about what God says, promises, and provides. Perhaps the spiritual pessimist only sees how big their sin is and the fact that they are not what they should be. Does this sound like you? Then, we have the spiritual optimist. The spiritual optimist may not often be filled with doubt but due to their perspective faces the danger of having unfulfilled expectations. Spiritual optimists make so much of the riches of grace that they make little of their personal responsibility of faithfulness or holiness. Do you ever feel that way? Of course, all of us think that we are spiritual realists. We believe that we have it figured out. The truth is, none of are consistently spiritual realists. Normally, we spend our time throughout a single day bouncing around between all of these perspectives.

The bad news is that our spiritual perspective is skewed more often than not. The good news is that the gospel of grace brings our perspective back around to fix our eyes on Christ alone. In Eph. 1:15-23, Paul prays for the spiritual perspective of his listeners. God doesn’t want us to be playing spiritual pinball constantly being smacked around in uncertainty. The first fourteen verses that open Paul’s letter to the Ephesians gives us too many doctrinal, doxological, and devotional truths to live in uncertainty or inconsistently. When we are enlightened to our wealth in Christ then we can enjoy our walk with Christ. The pessimist doesn’t enjoy their walk with Christ because they don’t see their wealth. The optimist doesn’t enjoy their walk with Christ because they often have their expectations left unsatisfied. The realist, however, enjoys their walk with Christ because they have by faith embraced the riches of His grace so that they can endure the struggles in their daily walk before God. Many Christians live without the power and joy that has been provided to them in Christ. Charles Spurgeon said about this passage, “Oh, to have a heart that can glorify Christ as Paul did! Truly, if we know ourselves to be one with Christ, and know the privileges which come to us through that blessed gate, we may indeed extol him with all our heart and soul.” What we need is to see our position, privileges, and practical living in Christ with the right perspective of faith. As we have seen in our study of Ephesians, our wealth empowers our walk, and our walk embraces our wealth in Christ. Both are dependent and directed by the other. Our wealth in Christ is who we are. Our walk in Christ is what we do. Our walk in Christ is practically becoming who became positionally in our wealth in Christ. What Paul prays for and what I pray for myself, you, and all believers is that we would come to a fuller knowledge of faith so that we may live in wisdom before God. What we need is the right perspective. The more we become of our wealth in Christ then we can apply it by faith in our daily walk.

Now, let’s break down Paul’s prayer for perspective. This prayer found in Eph. 1:15-23 will be broken down in three parts. This prayer has a time of rejoicing for perspective (V. 15-16), requesting for perspective (V. 17-18a), and the reasons for perspective (V. 18b-23).

The prayer of perspective begins with rejoicing. Eph. 1:15-16 reads, “¹⁵ Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,¹⁶ Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;” The opening word, “wherefore” is going to be key. For the Ephesians and for us to have the right spiritual perspective about our wealth and walk in Christ we must go back to see the depth, height, and breadth of truth in Eph. 1:3-14. Based on those truths, Paul rejoices for the application of that wealth in their current walk with Christ. In these two verses Paul rejoices for their faith and love. Faith and love seem to always be combined. If we are poor in faith, then we will be poor in love. When we are rich in faith, then we are rich in love. Faith and love make the foundation of a healthy and proper spiritual perspective. The spiritual pessimist and optimist don’t live in both, but the spiritual realist does. Faith and love are the fruits of the wealth of wisdom and revelation that is given to us in Christ. Faith and love are the proper perspective and response to what God has revealed to us by His grace. Having proper spiritual perspective exercises faith and is evidenced by love. Faith exercises trust, confidence, contentment, and dependence upon the wealth of grace in Christ. Faith is also the expression of our vertical relationship with God. It is faith that allows us to look upward and outward. By faith we move forward by growing deeper in the wisdom and revelation of God that is needed to have the proper perspective spiritually. As faith grows, love is shown. Love is the outward evidence horizontally of our inward exercise of faith vertically. Faith empowers and enables love, while love is the expression of faith. When we love God, we put our faith in Him alone. As we put our faith in Him alone, we experience His love more fully and then express His love outwardly to others. For these two things, Paul rejoices. Later in this passage, we will see that Paul is going to pray that they would grow into a fuller perspective of faith based on the wisdom and revelation of God for, in, and through them. Wisdom and revelation in our life are exercised by faith and evidenced by love. The more we know through faith the more we grow in love. The wisdom and revelation of God that is needed for a proper spiritual perspective is rooted in a fuller knowledge of God. Paul rejoices over this and reminds them that he consistently prays for them. He gives thanks for their walk in Christ based upon their wealth in Christ. However, as we will see, Paul prays that they would go deeper, higher, and wider in their spiritual perspective through the wisdom and revelation of God. None of us have arrived yet. We haven’t learned all we need to learn. Perfection avoids us like the plague. We aren’t who we were. We aren’t who we will be. But, through perspective of wisdom and revelation of God we can slowly become (our walk) who we became (our wealth) in Christ.

Grow with me as we study the believer’s wealth and walk in Christ.

Grow deeper.

Grow higher.

Grow wider.